Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal: Saka’s second-half goal makes it two wins from two for the champions

By Jack Shaw · Villa Park, Birmingham · Published: 06:15 BST

• Bukayo Saka’s second-half goal gave Arsenal a 1-0 win at Villa Park on Monday night.
• The champions have now won both of their opening league games, extending an unbeaten start.
• Aston Villa have lost their first two matches without scoring — something they had not done since 2002.

Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal was settled by one moment and one player. Bukayo Saka’s second-half finish was enough for the Premier League champions to leave Villa Park with three points on Monday night, making it two wins from two, and leaving Unai Emery’s rebuilt side still waiting for a goal — let alone a point — in the new season.

Aston Villa 0-1 Arsenal: how the champions won it

Arsenal were, as the Guardian’s Ben Fisher put it from Villa Park, authoritative, and they seemed to enjoy holding Villa at arm’s length. Emi Buendía rattled the crossbar early and Nicolas Jackson pinched the ball off Gabriel Magalhães before crossing for the 19-year-old George Hemmings, who could not convert from inside the six-yard box. Beyond that, David Raya was largely untroubled. Saka’s goal came down Arsenal’s right, where Ian Maatsen was beaten to the ball, and with six minutes of normal time left Declan Rice shut the same full-back down as he burst into the area — the passage that, in Fisher’s telling, summed the night up.

It was played in front of a reduced Villa Park crowd of around 37,000, with the North Stand closed for the season while it is expanded. For the full chronological timeline of the weekend’s Premier League action and the deadline-day fallout, follow the rolling coverage at JOE Sport.

The expert angle: the champions’ least glamorous, most useful win

Arsenal did not play especially well, and that is exactly the point. A 1-0 at Villa Park with one clear chance conceded is the kind of result title sides bank in August and only appreciate in May. There was no second goal, no comfort, no procession — just a team that took the lead and then managed the rest of the game without ever letting it turn back into a contest.

The tell was Declan Rice’s tracking run with six minutes left. A midfielder sprinting back to cover an overlapping left-back, in a game his side is already winning, is not a highlight-reel moment. It is a squad-wide habit, and it is what separates a team that wins at Villa Park from one that draws there.

For Villa, the numbers look brutal — two games, no points, no goals, a start they last endured in 2002 — but the performance did not. This was a marked improvement on the opener at Brighton, where they were 4-0 down inside 31 minutes and down to ten men by the 40th. Zion Suzuki, the £30m goalkeeper signed from Parma and handed the No 1 shirt vacated by Emiliano Martínez, had no chance with the goal and pinged 50-yard passes that suggested he will be an asset. Nicolas Jackson, the £65m record signing wearing Ollie Watkins’ old No 11, showed flashes of what he can bring. Boubacar Kamara shielded the back four well until Saka broke through. The pieces are there. The finishing, so far, is not.

Wrap-up

Two games in, Arsenal have six points and Villa have none — but only one of those numbers feels like it will hold. Is Emery’s side genuinely in trouble, or simply mid-rebuild and short of luck? For another look at how the early table is shaping up, read our report on Manchester City’s 4-1 win at Crystal Palace.

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